That's Amore

“Eight minutes had gone by. He readjusted his spectacles on his nose, sighed, and drew the next batch of work toward him, with the scrap of paper on top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a large unformed handwriting: I love you.”

--p 108

Well, this is a rather interesting plot twist, eh? Personally, I was more than a bit surprised when Winston read the note and discovered those three little words. Like Winston, I was expecting the note to entail details about where Winston could meet with a Brotherhood operative, or even with Goldstein himself. I thought that Orwell’s main focus in this book involved Winston’s attempt to rebel against Big Brother. Now, however, I have a feeling that Orwell’s plot is not as grandiose as I believed. Perhaps Orwell’s tale will turn out to be a romance story amid a harsh, unaccepting society (unlikely). Perhaps the tale is simply supposed to be that of a regular man in his futile life within an oppressive government. This possibility seems rather likely. I now doubt that Orwell’s intent is to write of Winston’s endeavor to bring down Big Brother; after all, Orwell’s intent in writing 1984 was not to teach how to overcome socialism, but rather to warn against accepting socialism before it is implemented.

Down the Memory Hole (Flashback)

“But this was concrete evidence; it was a fragment of the abolished past…it was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if in some way it could have been published to the world and its significance made known. He had gone straight on working….Then, without uncovering it again, he dropped the photograph into the memory hole, along with some other waste papers. Within another minute, perhaps, it would have crumbled into ashes. That was ten—eleven years ago. Today, probably, he would have kept that photograph.”

--p 79

Over the course of his writing, Orwell includes several flashbacks from earlier in Winston’s life. These flashbacks often reveal some aspect of Big Brother’s society which Winston struggles to accept. Winston is able to remember limitedly a time different from the present, or memories which contradict his current situation. Yet while he may briefly use these memories to fuel his temporary hatred for Big Brother, these memories inevitably fade back into memory. Like the photograph in his flashback, these flashbacks and memories are unable to convince Winston to act progressively, even in the face of such contradiction and oppression. These flashbacks only emphasize the fact that Winston is unwilling to take the risk in standing up to Big Brother. Sure, he walks in the bad part of town; yet that hardly makes him a hardened rebel. In reality, Winston is little more than a spineless subject to the Party like all the other mindless citizens of Oceania.